Primitive Archer

Main Discussion Area => Cave Men only "Oooga Booga" => Topic started by: jamie on December 04, 2009, 06:34:09 am

Title: chaga fungus (with photo)
Post by: jamie on December 04, 2009, 06:34:09 am
this is the true tinder fungus that grows mostly on birch but can be found on other trees here in the northern part of the world. ive been drinking tea made from this fungus . tastes a bit like coffee. healing properties from this conk sound like they are fairy tails. science has found it to contain anti cancer/tumor properties. also it has natural chemicals used to fight influenza. it also contains more anti oxidants than any other naturally occuring source. ive been drinking it since flu season started and concidering my kids have been throwing the plague back and forth to each other and a good friend has had the flu, i havent been sick yet. thought you all might find some interest in it. google it . the info is really surprising. its hard to find in the woods but its there if you look.

[attachment deleted by admin]
Title: Re: chaga fungus
Post by: DanaM on December 04, 2009, 07:56:13 am
Is that the one that looks like a burnt spot on the birch tree and is hard as a rock?

I haven't had a cold or flu in 4 years jamie :) and its because I work in a sewage plant and get exposed to lots of little nasties which results in
a immune system in overdrive, this has been proved scientifically ;D So folks quit using all this antibacterial crap and get dirty its healthy ;D
Title: Re: chaga fungus
Post by: jamie on December 04, 2009, 08:46:06 am
yup. looks like a charred limb. i agree on the dirt too.
Title: Re: chaga fungus
Post by: ricktrojanowski on December 05, 2009, 08:48:26 am
Is that the one that looks like a burnt spot on the birch tree and is hard as a rock?

I haven't had a cold or flu in 4 years jamie :) and its because I work in a sewage plant and get exposed to lots of little nasties which results in
a immune system in overdrive, this has been proved scientifically ;D So folks quit using all this antibacterial crap and get dirty its healthy ;D
It's not the dirt, germs just don't want to hang out with you ;D
Title: Re: chaga fungus
Post by: DanaM on December 05, 2009, 11:30:24 am
Thanks Rick, it must be my charming personality eh ;) :D
Title: Re: chaga fungus
Post by: Outbackbob48 on December 05, 2009, 04:10:37 pm
Dana M , I  agree with you on the dirt thing. I,ve worked construction forever an my hands are always dirty an I don,t use all these hand sanitizer things, eat  my sandwich just use the bag to keep heavy dirt off from it, an I,m healthy as a horse, maybe I,m just lucky but I believe dirt helps you build up immunitys. I,ve been skinnin fur every year since I was a kid an never wear gloves, got a few tick bites an flea bites over the years but nothing serious. Just make sure an take a shower in evening after a day  of handling furs.  Mrs. doesn,t aprreciate flea bites.8>(  I believe clean dirt is healthy. Later Bob
Title: Re: chaga fungus
Post by: zeNBowyer on December 05, 2009, 05:01:02 pm
Actually your  hands  are the  one  thing(s)  you  should  keep as  clean  as  practical, they  are  responsible  for  most transmission of harmful microbes, in  the  home  and in  the  hospital
Title: Re: chaga fungus
Post by: recurve shooter on December 09, 2009, 11:04:31 am
Dana M , I  agree with you on the dirt thing. I,ve worked construction forever an my hands are always dirty an I don,t use all these hand sanitizer things, eat  my sandwich just use the bag to keep heavy dirt off from it, an I,m healthy as a horse, maybe I,m just lucky but I believe dirt helps you build up immunitys. I,ve been skinnin fur every year since I was a kid an never wear gloves, got a few tick bites an flea bites over the years but nothing serious. Just make sure an take a shower in evening after a day  of handling furs.  Mrs. doesn,t aprreciate flea bites.8>(  I believe clean dirt is healthy. Later Bob

my dad is a rigger, and he's the same way. i think it has more to do with the constant physical work. i think that actually useing your bodie for what  its made to be used for is better for it than just about anything you can buy.
Title: Re: chaga fungus
Post by: stickbender on December 31, 2009, 02:18:18 am

     Jamie, I think the Ice Man, had some of that in his pouch also.  It was used like you said, for infections, and other medicinal uses.  It was also good for expelling intestinal parasites.  :P  I think I have some of that in Montana.  Got it off of a piece of paper birch.  Hard as a rock.  I got it for tender.  You can ingest that?  I want to get a good identification on it though, before, I go making a tea out of it.  When does it go bad?  As in you can't use it anymore?  This one was a tan, to dark brown.  Was flat on top, and angled in towards the tree from there.  Do you just cut a chunk off, slice off the hard outer part, and use some of the inner stuff? 

                                                                     Wayne
Title: Re: chaga fungus
Post by: jamie on December 31, 2009, 05:55:58 am
wayne that sounds like a birch polypore. chaga is just a big ol chunk of nasty growing on the side of the tree. looks like it is burnt on the outside. do a search and you'll see a difference. i have been drinking a cup of the tea daily. anytime i felt the slightest bit of a cold coming on i drank a heavy dose of it before hitting the sack. the following day all symptoms were gone.
Title: Re: chaga fungus
Post by: stickbender on December 31, 2009, 04:39:14 pm

     Alright Jamie, I will do a search on it.  I know mushrooms, in general are good for the immune system, it helps in the production of white blood cells.  Just curious, how did you come about making a tea out of this nasty looking stuff? :P
                                                                Wayne
Title: Re: chaga fungus
Post by: zeNBowyer on December 31, 2009, 04:49:15 pm
Clostridium tetani inhabits  soil as spores,
the  organism responsible  for tetanus,  or  lockjaw,
the terminal  stage resulting in  the  victim spasming  so  hard they  break  their  backs~
Title: Re: chaga fungus
Post by: jamie on December 31, 2009, 04:57:33 pm
Wayne a friend of mine is one of the leading ethnobotonists in the northeast and he asked if I had seen it in my area. He then told me its properties.
Title: Re: chaga fungus
Post by: DanaM on December 31, 2009, 08:08:00 pm
Wayne just don't make any tea from the shrooms eddie grows in his closet :o :o :o :-X :-X :-X
Title: Re: chaga fungus
Post by: stickbender on December 31, 2009, 09:51:39 pm

     Don't worry, Dana, I don't want to see any visions...... ;D  If I want to be set free, I will just take a little NC mountain spring water, so to speak...... ;)
                                                                           Wayne
Title: Re: chaga fungus (with photo)
Post by: jamie on January 01, 2010, 06:34:06 am
i added a pic on the first post
Title: Re: chaga fungus (with photo)
Post by: stickbender on January 01, 2010, 11:47:24 pm

     Jamie, thanks.  I googled it the other night, and went to the wikipedia site, and then down to the research site.  Amazing stuff.   I thought that Tea Tree Oil was amazing, but wow, I will have to try to get some of this stuff.  I hope it grows in Montana.  I am pretty close to the Canadian boarder, about two and a half, to three hours away.  I will definitely be on the lookout for it, when I am in the woods !  Wish I had some of it earlier, maybe I wouldn't have had to have an inch and a half of my right ear sliced, for skin cancer.  Squamis cells.  Nasty stuff.  Tends to travel.  Well I will see if any of the health food stores here have it.  Thanks for showing it. ;)

                                                                            Wayne
Title: Re: chaga fungus (with photo)
Post by: DanaM on January 02, 2010, 09:19:00 am
jamie how do you prepare the tea and what strength ???  I have one good sized chunk laying around, know where more is but its a 2 or 3 mile trip in on snowshoes :)
Title: Re: chaga fungus (with photo)
Post by: stickbender on January 02, 2010, 01:47:11 pm

     Well ya know Dana, ya could send da wife fer it...... ::)  Ooooh, I forgot she reads this too...... :o  Dana, go to Google, and look it up, and then go to the wikipedia, and go down to research, and it will tell you all about it, and there are also venues on how to prepare it.

                                                                            Wayne
Title: Re: chaga fungus (with photo)
Post by: jamie on January 03, 2010, 07:45:39 am
dry the conk so it doesnt mold up. two ways ive made it. grind it and use twice the amount of cgaga as you would coffee and use the coffee machine. my favorite. one gallon of water boiling throw in a handful or two of chaga chunks and simmer for an hour then turn off and let it sit for a day. dont throw away chunks. you can get 2 or 3 more brews out of em.
Title: Re: chaga fungus (with photo)
Post by: DanaM on January 03, 2010, 08:39:36 am
Thanks jamie this stuff is hard as rock on the tree, can't imagine it molding
Title: Re: chaga fungus (with photo)
Post by: jamie on January 04, 2010, 05:19:47 am
after making tea from it dana i usually throw the chunks back in the dehydrator to dry. one time i didnt by the afternoon the mold spores had already grown. now who knows that mold may be good for ya but i aint gonna be the one to find out right now.
Title: Re: chaga fungus (with photo)
Post by: DanaM on January 04, 2010, 11:36:41 am
Ya big wussy ;) :D
Title: Re: chaga fungus (with photo)
Post by: jcinpc on January 11, 2010, 11:27:22 am
chaga is awesome, I have a few pounds of it, I too make tea from it, nice earthy stuff. Let it dry out and can use it in your fire piston or as insence. It does vary as too hardness, I like the softer pieces for the piston.
Title: Re: chaga fungus (with photo)
Post by: jamie on January 11, 2010, 11:38:36 am
jc my kids and friends call it "dirt tea".  ;D
Title: Re: chaga fungus (with photo)
Post by: jcinpc on January 11, 2010, 11:47:08 am
you aint kidding, They tried it but used alot of honey and mint or lemon. I like it. I wouldnt be suprised it does have an effect on tumor growth and cancers , yet we will never hear of it because that means the gov`t cant make money off of it.
Title: Re: chaga fungus (with photo)
Post by: Hillbilly on January 11, 2010, 12:46:54 pm
I haven't found any here in a long time. It grows at high elevations here on yellow birch, but it's rare. I've tried using it for tinder, but never medicinally. I'll have to keep an eye out for some more.
Title: Re: chaga fungus (with photo)
Post by: Jude on January 22, 2010, 08:23:07 am
Huh, you learn something new every day.  I've seen it plenty in Vermont and New York, and in Alaska as well, so I assume it probably grows anywhere in between you find birches.  As far as I know, no fungus that grows off the side of a tree is poisonous.  Now the ones growing on the ground are another story, got sick as a dog once from something I thought was a puffball, before I learned that puffballs should always be white in the center.  They were tasty though.
Title: Re: chaga fungus (with photo)
Post by: jamie on January 22, 2010, 10:09:17 am
ground ones i stay away from , too many uh-ohs can happen with em.
Title: Re: chaga fungus (with photo)
Post by: Hillbilly on January 22, 2010, 01:46:28 pm
Jude, there are definitely several fungi that grow on trees that are poisonous, including at least one deadly one. Even some edible ones can be toxic if they're growing on the wrong kind of tree.
Title: Re: chaga fungus (with photo)
Post by: Jude on January 23, 2010, 06:29:29 am
Hillbilly, thanks for the info.  I had been told in the past that nothing growing off the trunk was poisonous, though they may have only been referring to polyphores.  You probably saved me from poisoning myself.(again)  :P

As far as the dirt thing, studies have indicated that our fixation on sanitation is resulting in more allergies among our kids.  When they finally come into contact with a potential allergen, their immune system doesn't know how to handle it.  Public sanitation and baby formula were at the root of the polio epidemic.  Prior to that time, polio was a commonly encountered virus, and mothers passed on the immunity to their babies through the milk.  I've noticed with my own kids that something is up.  No one in my family had anything worse than mild allergies.  We were farmers, drinking raw milk everyday, as well as being exposed to $%!^ every day.  I have one son with a life threatening wasp allergy, and another with asthma.  Their mom has no allergies at all.  Growing up, I didn't know a single kid with asthma.  Nowadays it seems commonplace, like there's something wrong with our environment.  I always used to hear that doctors rarely got sick, because they were always around sick people.  That's probably true.
Title: Re: chaga fungus (with photo)
Post by: Jake Levi on April 25, 2010, 01:59:28 pm
Zenbowyer  the tetanus threat is one worth dealing with, but the upside is that a tetanus shot gives over ten years protection, I have had so many tetanus shots that they could use my blood for antitetanus serum. The titre has to be way up there.

That said, otherwise, I am continually getting my hands nicked, gouged, nocked and abraded, thankfully I heal fast, but do wash them thoroughly mostly because of coming in contact with other people.  I stopped getting stitches for things years ago. If its bad I squeeze some super glue on after washing it. Works for me. Also get smaller scars.

I am going to be looking for this chaga fungus, I am fairly sure I have seen it, and will be googling it.

Great thread guys, thanks.
Title: Re: chaga fungus (with photo)
Post by: stickbender on April 26, 2010, 01:50:21 am


     Hey Josh, what part of Montana are you moving to?

                                    Wayne
Title: Re: chaga fungus (with photo)
Post by: Jake Levi on April 27, 2010, 09:38:59 am
Is one season better then another for finding/harvesting this?

I'm not Josh but very shortly going to MT, settling either in Lame Deer in the SE or Browning up east of Glacier Natl Park.
Title: Re: chaga fungus (with photo)
Post by: stickbender on April 28, 2010, 01:01:44 am


      My house just got finished today, and I will be moving to Thompson Falls, Mt. .  Between trout Creek, and plains.  Catecornered to Cour D'Alene Idaho. 8)

                                                                                 Wayne
Title: Re: chaga fungus (with photo)
Post by: jamie on April 29, 2010, 06:31:55 am
no seasons on this stuff jake
Title: Re: chaga fungus (with photo)
Post by: Jake Levi on April 29, 2010, 10:29:37 am
Thanks Jamie

I was wondering as I saw some this week while driving around.